Hector watches as Shahdee races away with what seems like the aid of an inivisible horse. Guy just shakes his head and helps Lyn carry the weapons. Everyone heads toward the gers, but Hector stays standing there with his horse, looking out over the plains in the direction the mysterious girl had flown. A few minutes later Eliwood joins him.

"She's quite mysterious isn't she?"

"No, not so much as complicated."

"How can you tell?"

"She reminds me of myself when I was like that. And you can tell she would just love to pound the living snot out of Rath."

"That you can. What do you think caused this whole ordeal between them?"

"From what I can tell, Rath messed up in a big way."

"Yes, it does seem that way." Hector places his hands on his saddle and pulls himself up onto his horse. "Where are you going?" Eliwood asks

"For a ride. See if I can find the complicated girl." Hector starts to gallop across the plains in the general direction Shahdee went.

~Quite a few miles later~
Hector has slowed his horse down to a slow walk and still hasn't seen a sign of humanity for miles. The horse is starting to look a little thirsty and worn, so Hector takes it by the reins and begins to walk across the plains. He walks by this small stream and knows he must be getting close to where Shahdee is. He stops to let his horse take a drink of water and he looks up and sees this large thing flying toward him. And he knows it's not a Pegasi or a Wyvern, so he's a little tense, and puts his hand on his Wolf Beil. Shahdee alights on the ground about ten feet from Hector as he prepares to fight.

"What are you doing all the way out here?" Shahdee asks.

"I came looking for you, figured you might want some company, or something." Hector says, stammering over his words a little bit.

"Did you now? Was stammering over your words an intended part of your conversation?"

"It sounded a lot better in my head." Hector admits.

"I presume so. So you rode your horse ragged, miles from civilation of any sort on the plains to look for me?"

"Yeah, kind of a stupid idea I know, but."

"It's the thought that counts."

"I suppose it does. Shall we be getting back to the encampment?"

"That would be a good idea wouldn't it?" Shahdee says.

"Would you like some help getting up on my horse?" Hector asks as another awkward silence descends.

"Thank you." Shahdee says, putting one foot in a stirrup and moves up as Hector pushes her up. He gets on in front of Shahdee and directs the horse to walk in the direction of the encampment. On the journey back, Shahdee and Hector get to talking about various things. Weaponry, his life in the Ostian court, Shahdee's life living alone on the plains for six months, the issues they have with their older siblings, when everything goes terribly wrong. They both hear the familiar noise of an arrow flying through the air and a second later...

"AAH!" Shahdee screams with pain as the arrow pierces the left side of her back.

"Shahdee? What happened?" Hector asks, trying in vain to turn around in the saddle.

"Wyvern. We're -uh- under attack. Just gallop!" Shahdee shouts as she pulls the arrow out of her back. She turns around and starts throwing fireballs and lightning balls at the wyvern rider with a bow. Feeling faint from losing so much blood, Shahdee pools her power for one last huge blast. Combining fire, lightning, wind, and ice, Shahdee hurls the ball at the wyvern rider, and unable to get out of the way in time, the ball of power hits him dead on and he and his wyvern go down in a big ball of flame.

"Shahdee, what happened?"

"He's gone. Just one of them and he's g-" Shahdee starts to pitch forward and Hector reaches his hand over his shoulder and grabs the neck of her shirt, and pulls her off the back of the horse and puts her in front, between his body and the pommel on the saddle, and as Shahdee passes out, he gallops like hell for the encampent.

"Sarra! Sarra get your dimunitive butt over here now!" Hector yells as he gallops like hell into the encampent.

"What's the matter my lord? And what happened to Shahdee?"

"Just heal her, she got shot in the back with an arrow."

"What happened?" Guy asks as he and Rath come hurtling around the corner.

"I'm guessing a wyvern rider armed with bow and arrow attacked us and she took an arrow in the shoul-"

"We have a problem." Sarra says.

"What do you mean problem?" Hector demands.

"I mean, this arrow that hit her, it's poisoned. And I don't have the skill for this. Lord Pent!" Sarra shouts.

"Yes, Sarra?"

"Shahdee's been hit with a poison arrow and by the looks of it she's lost a lot of blood."

"The poison's esoteric, but I know it. Her head needs to be elevated, Lord Hector do you mind if we use you for a pillow?"

"No, not at all." Hector sits on his knees and gently positions Shahdee's head in his lap.

"This may hurt a little for you as well Hector." Lord Pent says, standing at Shahdee's feet.

"I've probably been through worse." Hector says.

"Alright. Everyone stand back." Lord Pent holds his staff up in the air and says some strange words and an unearthly green glow surrounds the three of them.

"Are you ready?" Lord Pent asks Hector.

"Yes."

"Erk, be ready to use that negation spell on my command." Lord Pent yells. He looks down at Shahdee's body and starts speaking some more strange words and the pain Shahdee seems to be feeling wakes her up and her back arches as she screams with pain. Hector grits his teeth, but the fact that he feels the pain as well is present on his face. All of a sudden, this dark substance flies out of Shahdee's body and above the green dome.

"Now Erk!" Lord Pent yells. Erk, a young mage uses the negation spell and a silver arrow shoots out and flies into the dark mass, obliterating it completely.

"Was that the poison Lord Pent?" Rath asks as the green dome receeds.

"Yes. It's an old kind, discovered by the Black Fang upon their inception. If not removed almost immediately after penetration, it will kill the one who was poisoned in a matter of hours. She'll sleep now, for a good night and day, the pain was enough to wake her up and make her pass out again. How are you Lord Hector?" Lord Pent asks as Rath picks up Shahdee and walks off to the chieftain's ger.

"I'm fine don't worry about me, he says, ha! You can barely stand straight milord. You need to lie down." Matthew says to Hector as him and Oswin catch Hector.

"I'm fine." Hector insists.

"Hector, for once, listen to others, go lie down. I highly doubt anyone will attack us in the gathering dark." Lyn says.

"See? Even Lyn thinks you should lie down." Matthew says.

"Fine." Hector grumbles. Oswin and Matthew take him to a ger near the chieftain's for a liedown.

~One full night and day later~
It's been almost one day since Shahdee was hit with the arrow. And it is almost midnight when Shahdee wakes up. Her eyes flutter open and she carefully sits up and looks around, noticing her room has been over run with girls. Shahdee picks up her boots and quietly sneaks over the sleeping bodies and out into the main room of the ger, noticing that has also been overrun by girls. Shahdee quietly picks her way over more sleeping bodies and puts her boots on outside the ger and slowly and carefully walks down to the river. She sits on the bank and gathers her knees up to her chest. A few minutes later she's joined at the riverbank by Hector.

"How did you even hear me coming then?" Hector asks as he takes a seat beside you.

"The grass. They were kind of screaming because they were being stepped upon, but otherwise you were extremely quiet."

"The grass. The. Grass. How did you even 'hear' the grass screaming?"

"Ever since my powers first emerged, I've been more in tune then nature then I was before and I can hear things you wouldn't normally hear, like the grass screaming. It's faint, but I can still hear it."

"I see. So, what happened between you and your brother, if you don't mind telling it to me, a complete stranger."

"Yes, but you're a nice complete stranger. You don't seem so bad as the picture of Hector I got painted by the Ostian traveler."

"When I get angry, I probably am as bad as the portrait of me that was painted for you."

"We'll see about that. But anyway, when I was only seven years old and Rath was fifteen, he got it into his head that he wanted to work for some Marquess and in that city at least things would be better for the nomads of the Sacae, and maybe eventually things would be better for the nomads all over the world. My father forbid him to go, telling Rath that if he, my father, were to die unexpectedly and Rath were abroad, word might not reach him for months. Well, this worked for about five years. When Rath turned twenty, my father was still in amazing health. Definitely wasn't going to die anytime soon. So Rath again got it into his head about leaving, only this time it was worse, much worse. My father forbade him from going, but Rath wanted to go so badly he was almost willing to do anything to be let go. And one day, Rath and my father got into this huge fight in my family's ger. I was hiding in my room, so I heard and saw the whole thing. No fists were thrown, but some mean and bitter things were said that day. Basically, Rath told my father to go shove it and Rath took his horse and galloped away. And that was the last I saw of him until the day you guys showed up."

"So, I get why your father would be all mad at him and everything, but why are you?"

"You have to understand. Rath and I were very, very close. He wasn't only my older brother, he was my best friend. When other kids in the tribe wouldn't let me play with them because I was too little or whatever the reason was, Rath would play with me. So that day when he told my father to go shove it, it felt like he was telling me to shove it too and it also felt like he abandoned me and left me alone."

"Kind of like 'why me?' What did I do to deserve this?"

"Yeah, it's selfish isn't it?"

"No, I felt that way after my parents died. Even though I can hardly compare the situation in which my parents died, to the way your parents died, I felt like it wasn't fair for them to leave me all alone in the world, to leave my brother to show me the things that should have been my father's to show me, and leave him to teach me the things that my mother would have taught me. But eventually I got over that. I realized one day that I had to let my anger and self-loathing, even, go. It's been what, five years since this whole thing with Rath happened? To be a little forward here, don't you think it's time to let it go?"

"I don't know if I can, I've held on to it for so long, it's almost become a part of me."

"You can do it though, I really think you can."

"You hardly know me, what makes you so confident?"

"I can almost sense things with people I guess you could say. And besides, all that anger and hatred will eventually burn you out and you'll be left with nothing. And you'll become, for lack of a better term, a bitter old bitch."

"Really. Hector, why are you up so late?"

"I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. I came out of the hut-looking thing near yours and saw you coming out of your hut-looking thing and heading for the river."

"First off, they're called gers, Hector. And you probably thought, 'What is she doing?' And 'I should follow her'."

"Something along those lines." Hector admits.

"I cannot believe I'm telling you all of this anyway. I mean, really, we met, what, a few hours ago?" Shahdee says, laying back on the grass.

"See, I told you I was good at this." Hector says, smiling. "And it's more like, we met a day ago because you were out for awhile because of that poison."

"I was out that long?"

"Yeah. Well, the arrow that hit you was poisoned and I guess it was some type of old poison and Lord Pent raised some protective dome around the three of us and some sort of energy started crackling inside the dome and the pain of him trying to draw the poison out of you, woke you up and then made you pass out again."